Against Celsus 6.62

And again Celsus, perhaps having misunderstood “For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things,” or perhaps because unlearned people have been rash in explaining such things, and not understanding to what the terms for bodily members applied to the powers of God refer, says: Neither has he a mouth nor a voice. Truly God will have no voice, if voice is air that has been struck, or a striking of air, or a form of air, or whatever those skilled in these matters define voice to be. But what is called the voice of God is said, as the voice of God, to be seen by the people in the words “All the people saw the voice of God,” the seeing being understood, to use the customary language of Scripture, spiritually. He says also that God has nothing else of what we know; but he does not make clear of what things we know. If he means members, we agree with him, understanding “of what we know” as the things named in a bodily and more common sense. But if we take “of what we know” in general, since we know many things, then he has virtue, blessedness, and divinity. And if one takes “of what we know” in a loftier sense, since all that we know is less than God, there is nothing absurd in our too accepting that God has nothing of what we know. For the attributes of God are greater than everything known not only to human nature but also to the beings that have risen above it. If he had read the words of the prophets, David saying, “But you are the same,” and, I think, Malachi, “and I have not changed,” he would have seen that none of us says there is any change in God, either in act or in thought. For remaining “the same” he governs changeable things according to their nature, and his reason chooses to govern them so.